


Grey Mercy

by danceswithhamsters01



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Anders - Freeform, Gen, Oghren - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 13:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16137941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: An attempt at getting Nathaniel Howe's Point of View when being recruited during Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening.Howe came back to Vigil's Keep after to the Blight to avenge his father. Instead of doing that, he gets himself mixed up with a few goofballs who happen to be Grey Wardens.





	Grey Mercy

He’d been uncertain of a great many things. Coming back to his homeland after it had been devastated by one of the shortest Blights in recorded history. Breaking into his family’s ancestral home and planning on laying traps. Then changing his mind and instead looking for a few treasured heirlooms before leaving. Letting himself get caught by the keep’s new occupants, sent there from Orlais, to await the arrival of the one he’d initially wanted to suffer in the traps he’d planned on setting.  He could have easily eluded them, all four of them. But he wasn’t certain where he’d go after that. 

 

H e sat in that cell for  three days and nights. He’d heard yelling, screaming and the sounds of battle on the third night. Two of the three guards watching over him had left to join the fray and never came back. Midday of the fourth day, she arrived. The so-called Hero. This new Warden-Commander his Orlesian captors had spoke n of with di sd ain. A mage from the backwater Circle of Magi at Kinloch  H old. He wanted to hate her. He wanted the anger in his blood to bleed into his voice, as if the venom in his soul could be spat out and overcome the one who’d murdered his father. 

 

“Ah, Commander. Good thing you’re here. This one’s been locked up three nights, now. Good men died while this one was protected in his cell,” the remaining guard grumbled to the pale, dark-haired woman as she drew close. 

 

“And this is?” she said in the thick accent found only in Highever and Amaranthine. Unexpected, that.

 

“He won’t give his name. All I know is he was caught poking around the estate in the middle of the night,” the guard answered. “I’d say he was just a thief, but it took four Grey Wardens to capture him. You best be careful. Whoever he is, he’s no ordinary burglar, that’s for sure.” 

 

She waved a small leather glove-covered hand. “Leave me to talk with him.” Silver eyes locked with  his own with unsettling ease. 

 

“As you wish, Commander. I’ll tell the seneschal you came. He’ll want to know what you decide to do with this man.” The guard unlocked the cell door before taking his leave. 

 

S he had not come alone. A fire-bearded dwarf in chain armor leaned against a desk, watching the goings-on. A tall, thin human man with honey-blond hair in mage’s robes paced to and fro near the jail’s doorway, as if uncomfortable even being there.  He noted with hidden silent amusement that she was at most  four inches taller than the dwarf as she pushed open the cell’s door. 

 

“If it isn’t the great hero, conqueror of the Blight and vanquisher of all evil. Aren’t you supposed to be ten feet tall? With lightning bolts shooting out of your eyes?” he smirked. 

 

She shrugged. “The darkspawn probably think so,” in the same accent he used, if a little less… refined sounding. “As for the bolts, those come from the hands. I heard eye-bolts just didn’t work. Poor idiots who tried casting it that way kept going blind. But I’ve heard legends of one mage who man a ged to shoot one from his arse,” she added with a lop-sided grin. 

 

The blond man stopped his pacing and guffawed.

 

“Somehow I just thought that my father’s murderer would be… more impressive,” he let the disdain he felt color his voice. “I am Nathaniel Howe. My family owned these lands until you showed up. Do you even remember my father?” 

 

She folded her arms and arched a brow. “Arl Howe? The traitor Arl who murdered Teyrn Cousland and his family? Who tortured the innocent folk of Highever, a dear friend of mine among them? Yes. Yes, I do. Your father brought his end on himself.”

 

“My father served the Hero of River Dane and fought against the Orlesians! Yet our family lost everything! I came here… I thought I was going to try to kill you. To lay a trap for you,” he continued. “But then I realized I just wanted to reclaim some of my family’s things. It’s all I have left.”

 

She scowled. “You tried to have me killed?”

 

“That was the plan. Look, I don’t know what happened with the Couslands. It sounds like it was horrible. The entire war was. Whatever my father did, however, shouldn’t harm my whole family. The Howes are pariahs now, those of us left.” 

 

He  sighed and fixed the Warden with a glare. “It’s all thanks to you. And now you get to decide my fate. Ironic, isn’t it?” 

 

She had the audacity to look bored. “Perhaps you should work to redeem your name, then.”

 

“You’re right. I’ll go join King Alistair’s service immediately. He’d be certain to give a Howe another chance!” he sneered.

 

“Do you really hate me so much?” she said softly, leaning against her ebonywood staff.

 

“The darkspawn are a menace. If it weren’t for the Blight, maybe my father would never have… done what he did. But I can’t do anything about them, can I? There’s just you and the Grey Wardens, here in my home,” equal parts frustration and irritation sang in his veins and colored his voice.

 

S he rested her chin on the knuckles of her left hand while mindlessly  rotating her staff between the fingers of her right. Those eyes of hers looked him up and down as if weighing something. Beyond that, he had no clue what was going on in the mage’s mind. 

 

“What will you do if I let you go?” she asked after several minutes.

 

“If you let me go? I… don’t know. I only came back to Ferelden a month ago.” He hadn’t expected that. He let the surprise on his face fade into a scowl. “If you let me go, I’ll probably come back here. You might not catch me next time.” 

 

“I’ve decided what to do with you,” she said, her face an unreadable mask. 

 

“Already? Good.”

 

T he Commander clapped her hands twice, summoning the guard from outside. A whispered conversation saw the guard trot away quickly afterwards. 

 

“I brought the seneschal for you, Commander,” the guard said upon his return several minutes later. 

 

“I see you’ve spoken to our guest. Quite the handful, isn’t he? Have you decided what’s to be done with him?” Varel asked the Warden. 

 

“Did you know this was Nathaniel Howe?” she asked as if commenting on the weather. 

 

“A Howe? It figures that they would turn up again. The Howes are implacable enemies, Commander,” Varel grumbled. 

 

“Give him his family’s things, and let him go,” the mage said calmly.

 

“You’re doing WHAT?!” To say that he was bewildered would be an understatement. Tales had painted this Warden as some sort of bloodthirsty war goddess, not some lunatic with no care for her personal well-being. 

 

“Commander, that’s… I must object! You want to let a thief keep what he stole?!” Varel boggled at the mage. 

 

“Grey Wardens under my command are not thieves. Those things belong to him. At worst, he was trespassing,” she said softly, leaning against her staff once more. 

 

T he seneschal gaped like a fish out of water. She stared at him, eyes alight with challenge. After what felt like an uncomfortable eon of silence, the man relented and nodded to the guard beside him. 

 

“You heard the verdict,” the guard growled as he unlocked his cell door. “Come with me, so you can... collect your things.” 

 

As he followed the guard, he shot a glare at the small Commander.

 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, m’lady,” Varel sighed.

 

Several days passed. The confusion and uncertainty had not left him. No traps awaited him. If any of the guards in the arling’s capitol recognized him, they made no comment on it.  It would seem the Warden mage truly held no designs on him. He was a free man. 

 

A  flash of blue and black with silver caught his eye. A trio of people in Gray Warden uniforms left Amaranthine’s gates, heading along the path that lead to Vigil’s Keep. Long black hair gently  swaying in the  weak  afternoon wind, the small Commander lead the party.  Part of him questioned his sanity as he followed them, steps as quiet as a great cat hunting prey.  When they stopped for a moment to rest some time later, he made his move. 

 

“Wait. I want to talk with you,” he said, stepping into full view, taking care to keep his hands in sight at all times.

 

“Don’t look now, but I think the bird’s come flying back,” the blond man smirked, his grip on his staff a little too tight to be merely banter. 

 

“Careful. This one might just go all Zevran on you,” the red-headed dwarf added.

 

That remark made the woman belly-laugh,  dropping the wild flowers she’d picked  as she rose to her feet . She tapped the single gold loop earring she wore and smirked at the dwarf. 

 

“And I still say you’re nuts, Commander,” the dwarf shot back.

 

Apparently, it was some sort of in-joke. He cleared his throat, drawing her attention back. “You set me free. Just let me go, despite what I said or what I might do. I want to know why.”

 

She carefully regarded him, eyes soft. “I’m not looking for a fight with you, Howe. You’re not your father. At least, I hope you’re not.”

 

“Even though I was looking for a fight with you.” An idea came to him, a small, mad idea. An idea that made the rest of his mind question his sanity the moment it left his lips. “Take me with you. Make me a Grey Warden.”

 

She looked at him blinking in confusion as if thinking she’d misheard him. She opened and closed her mouth several times before words came out.

 

“It’s… It’s not that easy, Nathaniel.”

 

He pressed on. “I have nowhere to go. I fully expected to die in there, maybe I even wanted to. But you let me go. Make me a Grey Warden. Let me try. Please.”

 

“Are you hoping to redeem your name by doing this?” she asked cautiously. There was more in her eyes that she wasn’t telling. 

 

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s not even important. Maybe it’s more important that I do my part to face the darkspawn. Maybe that’s what my father should have done.” It was at least a purpose, killing darkspawn, something more honorable than what his father had gotten up to.

 

“There is the potential of you not surviving. The Joining is not a gentle process,” she said, her tone grim. 

 

“Even so, I want to try,” he replied earnestly.

 

The blond mage leaned over her shoulder, “Sev, I’m sensing a knife in the back in your future. Just saying.”

 

“So we just let anyone into this outfit, huh?” the dwarf grumbled.

 

He shook his head. “The Commander has nothing to fear from me.”

 

“Very well, then. Let us see how you fare the Joining.” She picked up her staff and began down the path. 

 

“Sevarra Leonora Amell! Have you gone barking mad?!” the blond man howled. “You’re going to recruit the would-be assassin?” 

 

“Wait,” the dwarf waved a hand in front of himself. “Your middle name is Leonora?” He began shaking with laughter. 

 

S he turned, scowling at the other mage, looking as if she’d eaten a lemon. “If you ever say that name around others again, I’ll… I’ll...” 

 

The blond arched a brow, smirking.

 

“I’ll make you wash Oggy’s armor the next time he’s had too much to drink!”

 

The smirk faded. “You’re vicious, Commander.”

 

Once again, a small part of  Nathaniel’s mind questioned his sanity .  _**These** _ were fearsome Grey Wardens? 


End file.
